‘Illegal’ demolition of Nath sect’s 1,400-year-old Jhandewalan shrine rocks Parliament

New Delhi: Two days after NewsDrum reported how the Jhandewalan demolition had shaken the centuries-old Har Shree Nath sect, Congress leader and Member of Parliament Ajay Maken on Thursday raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha, accusing the DDA and the BJP establishment of destroying a rare piece of heritage in the name of enforcement.

Speaking during Zero Hour on December 4, Maken said the Delhi Development Authority had carried out “illegal demolition” inside the Baba Peer Ratan Nath temple complex at Jhandewalan on November 29, despite stringent GRAP restrictions that banned all construction and demolition work across the capital that day.

He told the House that bulldozers, accompanied by heavy police deployment, entered the compound without prior notice and brought down old structures linked to the shrine. The area has now been covered with steel shuttering, cutting off access for devotees.

Maken reminded members that this was not a routine land dispute but an attack on a tradition that stretches from Delhi to Peshawar and Kabul.

He said the complex, often called “Dargah Peer Ratan Nath Ji”, is the Delhi base of a rare Nath stream whose main seat in Pakistan’s Peshawar still celebrates Shivratri every year.

After Partition, he recalled, Baba Manmohan Das had carried the sect’s sacred jyot from Peshawar to Delhi and established the Jhandewalan temple as a spiritual home for refugees from the North-West Frontier.

NewsDrum had earlier reported how the Har Shree Nath sect grew out of the teachings of Gorakhnath, how Peer Ratan Nath travelled to Khorasan, and how the Jhandewalan dargah-mandir became a key link for families displaced from what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Maken’s description in the House closely followed that lineage and stressed that followers still serve the surviving shrines in Peshawar and Jalalabad.

The Congress leader said that when Delhi’s agencies move bulldozers into such a shrine, they not only hurt local devotees but also Hindu families across the border who see the Jhandewalan seat as their main anchor in India.

He warned that the action had shaken the confidence of people who kept their faith alive under far more hostile conditions in Kabul and Peshawar.

Maken’s sharpest allegation was that the demolition was being done to benefit the nearby RSS headquarters, Keshav Kunj.

Citing local residents and media reports, he told the Rajya Sabha that the razed strip of land was being cleared to create additional parking or an access path for the organisation’s office.

The Congress leader asked whether “parking” had now been placed above “paramarth” and “prarthna” in the government’s priorities.

The charge echoes what residents had told NewsDrum at the site, where the Peer Ratan Nath complex shares a narrow lane with the RSS premises near Jhandewalan Mandir.

By linking the demolition to an alleged RSS expansion, Maken directly targeted the BJP, which now controls the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and leads the Union government that oversees the DDA.

He said officials appeared to have violated GRAP orders with confidence that “nothing would happen” to them because the action suited those in power.

Maken also contrasted the secrecy and speed of the demolition with the years of quiet service by the sect’s followers.

He pointed out that the dera’s mahants and devotees had kept the flame of Hindu practice alive in Peshawar and Kabul with very limited resources, while a thriving base in Delhi was being treated as expendable for civic or political convenience.

In his speech, clips of which were later posted by his party on X and Instagram, the Congress leader demanded three specific steps from the government.

मैं आज सदन का ध्यान एक अत्यंत पीड़ादायक और गंभीर विषय की ओर आकर्षित करना चाहता हूं, जो हमारी ऐतिहासिक विरासत और धार्मिक भावनाओं पर हुए कुठाराघात से जुड़ा है।

यह मामला दिल्ली के झंडेवालान में स्थित ऐतिहासिक बाबा पीर रतन नाथ मंदिर परिसर में DDA द्वारा की गई अवैध तोड़फोड़ का है।… pic.twitter.com/3aiWfp3k1m

— Congress (@INCIndia) December 4, 2025

He called for a high-level probe into the allegation that temple land was being taken for Keshav Kunj’s parking; immediate removal of barricades and steel shuttering around the shrine; and reconstruction of the demolished portions of the complex.

He also sought strict action against officials responsible for violating GRAP norms on November 29.

Maken said the government must answer why bulldozers reached the Jhandewalan shrine on a day when ordinary citizens were being warned and penalised over even minor construction work because of pollution.

He argued that if state agencies could bend environmental restrictions for this demolition, it raised serious questions over their neutrality and over the political signals driving such actions.

For the Har Shree Nath community, the battle is not only about walls and roofs but about continuity of memory.

NewsDrum’s December 2 report had highlighted how the 80-year-old Delhi dargah-mandir serves as a bridge between refugee families in India and the small Hindu population that still tends the sect’s oldest shrines in Peshawar and Jalalabad.

The government’s response to Maken’s demands will decide whether the incident is treated as a one-off administrative decision or as a serious breach that calls for accountability from both the DDA and the BJP-controlled civic set-up.